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EU says internet could fall apart

but I felt this warranted a new thread...I've highlighted a few points...

A battle has erupted over who governs the internet, with America demanding to maintain a key role in the network it helped create and other countries demanding more control.

The European commission is warning that if a deal cannot be reached at a meeting in Tunisia next month the internet will split apart.

At issue is the role of the US government in overseeing the internet's address structure, called the domain name system (DNS), which enables communication between the world's computers. It is managed by the California-based, not-for-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) under contract to the US department of commerce.

A meeting of officials in Geneva last month was meant to formulate a way of sharing internet governance which politicians could unveil at the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis on November 16-18. A European Union plan that goes a long way to meeting the demands of developing countries to make the governance more open collapsed in the face of US opposition.

Viviane Reding, European IT commissioner, says that if a multilateral approach cannot be agreed, countries such as China, Russia, Brazil and some Arab states could start operating their own versions of the internet and the ubiquity that has made it such a success will disappear.

"We have to have a platform where leaders of the world can express their thoughts about the internet," she said. "If they have the impression that the internet is dominated by one nation and it does not belong to all the nations then the result could be that the internet falls apart."

The US argues that many of the states demanding a more open internet are no fans of freedom of expression.

Michael Gallagher, President Bush's internet adviser and head of the national telecommunications and information administration, believes they are seizing on the only "central" part of the system in an effort to exert control. "They are looking for a handle, thinking that the DNS is the meaning of life. But the meaning of life lies within their own borders and the policies that they create there."

The US government, which funded the development of the internet in the 60s, said in June it intended to retain its role overseeing Icann, reneging on a pledge made during Bill Clinton's presidency. Since Icann was created, the US commerce department has not once interfered with its decisions.

David Gross, who headed the US delegation at the Geneva talks, said untested models of internet governance could disrupt the 250,000-plus networks, all using the same technical standards (TCP/IP), which allows over a billion people to get online for 27bn daily user sessions.

"The internet has been a remarkably reliable and stable network of networks and it has grown at a rate unprecedented in human history," he said. "What we are looking for is a continued evolution of the internet that is technically driven. We do not think the creation of new or use of existing multilateral institutions in the governance of essentially technical institutions is a way to promote technological change."

The US argues that many of the states demanding a more open internet are no fans of freedom of expression.

Well, neither is the US, really. The only difference is summarized thusly:
China : Keep your mouth shut!
US : Talk to the hand.

Anyway, before I make a troll out of this..

The threat offers a somewhat serious result; but do those countries have ANY of the infrastructure required?
I certainly do agree that no single country should control the Internet..
So how do we do it?
Infrastructure in every country; major lines running through, wireless for everyone, and a self-correcting internet which checks for a person's authenticity when someone makes an update.. Otherwise, a comparison of a page on several mirrors will revert to the old, most spread-around information?

Re: EU says internet could fall apart

"If it ain't broke don't fix it!" doesn't really cover this I think. The issue isn't if the internet is broken or something. It's about improving the internet (from another perspective as the american one, things do lack there) and a pile of political things.

Whoever thinks europe, china, russia, arab states, etc. don't have the resources or expertise to build their own dns system is seriously ignorant.

The countries who "are no fans of freedom of expression" don't need control over the naming system to censor the internet.

No more massive foreign attacks or spamming OUTSIDE of our government control and laws... Cool.

It's all about the naming system, they're not gonne cut the cables or something. Also most spam is directed towards US citizens, so they're gonne find ways arround that in no time. Is spam even illegal in the US?

Well.... the discussion continuing on AO threads since a fortnight now... Its true that Internet has been developed by America... In fact the same is true for too many other technologies as well... It starts from the verry basic one 'The Electricity' to the latest 'The Internet'... Americans are no doubt world leaders as far as modern technologies are concerned....Unlike The Russian or The Chinese philosophy to develop and carry out the major advancements in hidden cloisters and try to conceal their achievements.. The Americans are more like an open society.. Most of the breakthroughs in the modern technology fields are done in America, not only the Americans have benefitted from them rather the whole world is benefitting.

Internet the wonderful technology, which was initially developed for collaborative research among four american university nodes Univ. of California(LA, SB and Stanford)and Univ.of Utah funded by ARPA later DARPA and then NSF has evolved to a point.. where it can be correctly judged as crucial for worldwide economies and governance(in some cases). Its hard to imagine at this moment if a similar technology had emerged in some other country of the world, then whether it would have succeded to the point where Internet is today or not. No doubt americans are given credit for this.

Now regarding the control of the Internet

Already many suggestions have been made

CENTR response
CENTR - an organisation representing a large number of country-code domains - has responded to the US government's declaration. In a cautious welcome, it agreed that the root files needed to be run in a neutral manner and welcomed its support for ICANN, but pushed that ICANN should focus only on its "core function and limited remit".

Disingenuously, CENTR also says that the stated approach to be taken by the US government "de-politicises the role of the Root Servers and empowers the relevant local Internet Registries". And this, says CENTR will "minimise the need for any procedural intervention by other unrelated parties." CENTR doesn't care who runs the root, so long as they do so neutrally and in a purely technical fashion. As representative for country-code domains, CENTR will be delighted by the US government's statement that it considers different countries as having complete rights over their own country domain.

That statement was a necessity to prevent the rest of the world's governments turning against the US, but it serves CENTR's ends

The main concern of other countries is the control of US Government on ICANN functioning .... if ICANN is allowed to function independently without putting too much political pressure... Its just fine... Nobody wants to go back to fragmented world again.